Nine killed by suspected insurgents in southern Thailand

Oct 24, 2011, 10:02 GMT

Pattani, Thailand - Suspected insurgents killed nine people in two separate attacks in southern Thailand, officials said Monday.

Three bombs killed seven people and injured eight, most of them critically, in Narathiwat province late Sunday, police Colonel Banlue Chuvet said Monday.

The bombs were attached to three parked motorcycles in the provincial capital when they exploded, he said.

In the same province, suspected militants dressed as women opened fire with automatic weapons and threw grenades at a joint military and police checkpoint late Sunday, he said.

Two volunteer policemen were killed and one soldier wounded.

The majority-Muslim region has seen escalating violence since January 2004, when militants raided a military arms depot, killing five soldiers and making off with 350 semi-automatic rifles.

After that raid, the army launched a crackdown on the separatists, including an assault on a centuries-old mosque that antagonized the local population. The violence has claimed more than 4,800 lives over the past seven-and-a-half years.

The region has been under emergency rule most of the time since 2004, allowing authorities to make arrests without charges and detain suspects for weeks, and grants security forces some immunity from prosecution for actions carried out in the line of duty.